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London Journal; How to Review 'The Royals' Without Viewing It

A lot of Britons are talking about Kitty Kelley's new book ''The Royals,'' which claims to blow the lid off decades of adultery, alcoholism, drug addiction, caddishness and other disgracefully un-regal behavior in the upper reaches of the British royal family.

Sadly enough, though, they don't really know what they're talking about. They can't buy the Warner Books volume from British bookstores, because it hasn't been -- and never will be -- published here. They can't order it on the Internet from American stores or booksellers, which are under stern orders not to send copies to British addresses. And they can't learn about it from Britain's usually voluble newspapers, which, in a heroic example of nimble-footed journalism, have written long articles about the book without actually describing its contents.

The problem, of course, is Britain's tough libel law, which places the burden of proof on the defendant and means, in effect, that people sued for libel almost always lose actions brought against them. (The tabloids often try to skirt the law by picking on people unlikely to sue.)

Because Ms. Kelley would find it all but impossible to prove some of the book's more sensational assertions in court if she were sued, no publisher in its right mind would ever take on her book here. And because news organizations are vulnerable to libel suits if they merely repeat assertions made in books or by individuals, no paper is willing to print, and no broadcaster to utter, the bulk of Ms. Kelley's allegations.

''Our reporter sent us a note saying what all the allegations were, and I thought, 'There's absolutely no way we can publish this stuff,' '' said Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian's editor. ''So we told him to stick to the vague areas that were covered in the book.''

So instead of reporting the book's contentions that the young Queen Elizabeth continually demanded sex from her new husband, Philip; once thought that the poet Dante was an Italian jockey, and is so cheap that she once gave her laundress a bag of clothespins for Christmas, The Guardian said, ''There is close scrutiny of the Queen's deportment.''

And insteading of repeating the book's charge that the Duchess of York had used cocaine, among other things, The Guardian wrote that the book ''casts scorn on on some of the younger and newer members of the family.''

Faced with the same problem, The Daily Mail simply repeated Ms. Kelley's assertions without revealing which member of the royal family she was talking about, saying, for instance, that the book claims ''a much-loved member of the royal family is an alcoholic with a gambling problem.''

One critic, the historian Philip Ziegler, reviewed the book without having read it. ''Enough has appeared in the press about Miss Kelley's work to make its main thrust pretty clear,'' he waxed indignantly. When Francis Wheen, a Guardian columnist and an acquaintance of Ms. Kelley's, tried to get hold of a copy of the book, he was thwarted at every turn.

''I spoke to Kitty on the phone, and she said she would Fed-Ex me a copy,'' he explained, ''but the publishers said, 'Certainly not.' ''

Still, it seems unlikely that ''The Royals'' will received the surge of underground popular support enjoyed by ''Spycatcher'' (Viking), another famously not-published-in-Britain book about Britain, which in 1986 was sold by roadside flower peddlers after the Government banned it outright under another draconian law, the Official Secrets Act.

In that case, the Government spent millions of dollars trying to keep the book -- in which a retired British intelligence officer, Peter Wright, disclosed secrets about the British security services -- away from the public, threatening publishers and booksellers with prosecution if they published or sold it, slapping lawsuits on a number of newspapers that went ahead and printed extracts anyway.

Ms. Kelley's book, by contrast, is more concerned with intimate details of the royal family's personal lives than with matters of national security. Nor has it been well received here, at least by the small number of people who have found a way to receive it and who have mostly said it contains nothing particularly new.

'' 'The Royals' is a breathtaking, audacious practical joke,'' Ben Pimlott, a royal biographer, said in a review in The Guardian after actually reading the book. Further muddying the waters has been the response of a number of Britons whom Ms. Kelley identified as sources for her material, but who have claimed that they did not really tell her anything.

''We had her over for lunch,'' said Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, whose name appears in a long list at the front of the book. ''That's all.''

And, in the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, who is portrayed by Ms. Kelley none too flatteringly as near-vapid, if misunderstood, some members of the British public seem to have lost, however temporarily, their usually healthy appetite for salacious gossip about the royal family.

''There might have been demand a few months ago, but everyone is being so pious right now,'' Mr. Wheen, the Guardian columnist, said. ''Perhaps people would be ashamed to be seen reading it.''

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A version of this article appears in print on September 22, 1997, on Page A00004 of the National edition with the headline: London Journal; How to Review 'The Royals' Without Viewing It. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe